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For the last few weeks I have prayed about a word for 2017. Today, sitting in worship it came to me.

In a meditative service I adapted at about 11:45pm on New Year’s Eve I wrote meditation questions for the new year. One was “What name has God written in your heart for this year?”

And there is was “and she will be called Luminous.”

Yeah. I can’t make this stuff up.

Luminous. I like it.

Throughout the Christmas season we read John 1, we talk about the light (Jesus) that shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it.

This word has been working on me for a few weeks now. I noticed it on Christmas Eve when something struck me in a new way.

At the end of Silent Night I stand in front of the congregation with my lit candle and say this:

Even though the light in our hands may be extinguished the light of Christ born in our hearts this night goes with us into the world to bring good news for all to hear.

In other words, we are now the bearer of Christ’s light in the world.

For whatever 2017 brings, I pray I can be a beacon of light. I pray I am up for the challenge.

I anticipate a year where standing up to tyrany and hate will be needed. I anticipate a year when darkness will cover the face of the deep. I anticipate a year where in the midst of watery chaos and formless void that God will say “Let there be light” and declare the light good.

I pray for new mercies and joy each morning.

I anticipate a year of holding a torch for justice and candles of rememberance.

God has called me to be a luminous light. If it be blinding and harsher that one would like, then so be it.

For darkness cannot be driven out by darkness, only light can do that. (Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.)

May it be so for you and for me. Happy New Year Friends, may it be a Luminous Year!